


In The Mourning (I'll Rise)

by royalstanley



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 08:27:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12317391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royalstanley/pseuds/royalstanley
Summary: The story of Bill Denbrough and the boy with the summer smile.





	In The Mourning (I'll Rise)

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone! this is one of my first tries at fic and i hope its okay!
> 
> find me on tumblr - royalstanley

_**You escaped like a runaway train / off the tracks and down again** _

_**And my heart’s beating like a steamboat tugging-** _

You’re both thirteen. Exhausted, happy - young. You fall down on the floor laughing, faces flushed, holding on to each other tightly. He looks at you from under his lashes; hair a perfect halo around his head, eyes bright and alive. This is a moment (you think) you’ll remember forever. When you kiss Stan Uris, you realise he puts all of his being into everything he does. He’s gentle, caring, giggling between chaste kisses, hands settled on your waist; a protective touch. Stan murmurs that he’s been waiting all summer, just for this, a chance to worship Bill Denbrough the way he deserves to be. You push him away, laughing incredulously - shouldn’t you be saying that to him? This summer is captured in his smile: small; fleeting; overwhelming; stunning.

 

_**\- all your burdens / on my shoulders** _

After, you hold him while he cries. You’re wrapped around each other while he hisses  _I wish I died, I wish I died._ You thought you were scared with It towering over you, drinking in your terror and enveloping Itself in your fear, but nothing compares to this. Your  _I love you_ s drift through the air, they’re whispered into his skin, traced on to his palms (you ignore the fingernail marks, crescent moons that offer no illumination in the night). It’s not dead, It’s coming back, and you know there will be no soft bed to collapse into together in 27 years, so you hope this comfort will be eternal.

 

_**Now there’s nothing but time that’s wasted / And words that have no backbone** _

“Puh-p-promise me. If It’s not dead. W-w-we’ll come back.”

You see him wince as you slice open his palm. Not with pain, but with shame, guilt. You ignore it. He’ll come back. No one loves that hard and doesn’t come back.

(Stan Uris is full of surprises.)

 

_**And now it seems like the whole world’s waiting / Can you hear the echoes fading?** _

Derry is forgotten. It’s like looking at someone else’s past, someone else’s brother - someone else’s lover. The outside world is beckoning and you accept it with open arms. For some reason, the dedications in your books remain blank. There’s no one special enough to put there (anymore).

As the pages in your manuscripts are turned, whispers of

_Bill Denbrough, I love you_

and 

_I never thought I’d feel like this_

make you shake with frustration - you’re desperate to hold on to those sweet nothings.

Something remains crystal clear: flowers given to you. A first date. He buys you anemones. They symbolise anticipation.

(And fading hope. Being forsaken.)

 

_**I**_ _**n the mourning I’ll rise / In the mourning I’ll let you die / In the mourning / All my sorries** _

Youget a call.

”It’s Mike Hanlon. From Derry.”

You pack your bags, drowning in dread and something else. Hope, maybe. When you meet in the diner you can feel the absent presence; you expect to see a boy with bright white sneakers and a perfectly ironed shirt. Well, probably a suit now. It would look good on him. He was always so mature.

Your breathing becomes shallow as you get the news. 

“The plane must’ve-”

You try to use logic and reason. It’s what St- what he would have done. Mike’s smile turns twisted and rotten, and you sit there waiting for the joke; for your love to come out of the bathroom and laugh, eyes glinting -

_You didn’t think I’d leave you, did you Bill?_

He’s immortalised in your eyes now. You think that’s a good thing. At least now nothing can tarnish your beautiful boyfriend and his summer smile.

 

_**And it takes all my strength not to dig you up / From the ground in which you lay / The biggest part of me / You were the greatest thing / And now you’re just a memory -** _

His fingers are laced with yours. 

“You’re a part of me, Bill. Now and forever. Sometimes I think - I think that I’m an idiot to fall in love with you. I feel so unstable, like everything is collapsing, and I need order - I don’t know, maybe one day I’ll get tired of it all, and forget that I’m never supposed to break your heart. And it’ll just. Happen. But then I realise; how could I forget you? And the chaos settles for a while. That’s what you do, Bill Denbrough. You ground me.”

 

**_\- to let go of._ **


End file.
